I was sat in my normal place, right at the back of the class. Bob was in front of me, Ray at the desk opposite, but where was Gerard? He was never late. Mikey rushed over, avoiding the comments made by the other kids.
“Hey, Mikey. Where’s your brother?”
He stared at me. “Why should I know, I’m not his keeper.”
“You’re his brother, though. Is he even coming?” He just shrugged and started talking to Ray. The bell was about to go when a black-clad Gerard sauntered in. The normal morning routine ensued.
As he bent down to pick his notebook off the floor, I noticed that something was wrong. He was shaking. I didn’t go over to him because he always said that we should stay out of it all. The white laces of his converse had something on. They’d got a kind of brown stain on them. ‘Probably just mud…’
When he finally joined us, the others just carried on talking.
“You okay, Gee?” Stupid question; he obviously wasn’t.
“Yeah, fine. I’m sorry if it seemed like I wanted rid of you yesterday.” He wasn’t even looking at me, just at the floor. He sounded like he was crying. It certainly explained his trembling.
“You don’t need to apologise, you had a rough day yesterday.” ‘And every other day…’ I thought.
He pulled out his pencil case and flicked through the brightly coloured pages of his sketch pad. The superheroes on them looked as if they could jump out from the pages and fight the bastards at the front of the class, I’m sure Gerard would love for that to happen. I didn’t want to seem too forward or protective or anything, but I had to know why he was so late.
“Been somewhere this morning?”
“Hmm?” He was in a world of his own. Maybe that was best for him.
“You’re real late.”
“Am I?” He lifted his head and glanced over at the clock. “Yeah, I guess I am.”
“Did you have something to do?”
He nodded, still not really with what I was saying. Probably just taking any excuse I was giving him. I lowered my voice, almost whispering,
“You know that you can talk to me if something’s wrong, right?”
“Nothing’s wrong, Frankie. Don’t worry. Everything’s fine.” He looked up, met my gaze. He didn’t sound fine. He didn’t look it, either. His cheeks were tear-streaked and his eyes were red and puffy.
“Gee, you don’t have to tell me what the matter is, but please don’t say you’re fine when you’re not.”
“I’m not lying!” Everyone had turned to stare at him. He put his head back down and mumbled, “I’m not lying…”
There had to be a reason why Mikey had shown an apparent lack of care for his brother’s whereabouts.
“Has something happened at home?”
He sat, scribbling away at a skeletal figure, taking his time to answer as though he was trying to think up a story to give me.
“Just me and Mikes. He was a little annoyed about the whole locker thing last night. Guess I should have done something about it to begin with.”
Mikey turned around and shot a glare at us both before going back to discussing whatever he was discussing with Ray.
“Oh, right.” That wasn’t all, but I didn’t push him any further. Instead, I tried to change the subject. “Are you coming over tonight?”
“To yours?”
“Of course, Gee. Where else would I mean?”
He shrugged and continued with his bone-man.
“Yeah, I’ll come.”
No sooner had he replied, than the bell rung to signify the beginning of lesson. We all got up and went to our math classes.